would do well do demonstrate such basic principles as handling, 

 buying, preparation, and value. 



Can our industry meet this anticipated growth. Accord- 

 ing to the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, 4.3 billion pounds 

 of landed fish were marketed in 1963 for human consumption. 

 In 1975, the Bureau estimates, we will likely have well over 

 5.6 billion pounds of fish and seafoods. The Economic Coun- 

 cil of Canada estimates the growth of the Canadian Industry 

 at 3% per year to 1970, a growth of over 30%. In summary- 

 then — 



( 1 ) The size of the American market will increase 25%, 



(2) Americans will have 75% more money to spend on 

 food, and 



(3) Our industry is likely to have 30% more product to 

 supply this market. 



Our role in the next 1 years can be accomplished more suc- 

 cessfully and profitably by projecting and upgrading our image 

 more directly to the consumer by this process of education. 

 We have more to tell of interest and have potentially a more 

 fertile field from which to draw our story. This should not 

 only allow us to provide for the future growth and expansion 

 of the industry, but to increase as well the per capita consump- 

 tion of fish and seafoods. We can accomplish this through 

 fundamental principles. The first requirement is that our 

 industry act in concert. 



Wendell Earle: How many remember the general store of a 

 generation ago? I was fortunate to live at a time when a 

 Saturday night trip to town was a major business and social 

 event. Travel was by horse and buggy or sleigh. Impossible, 

 but remember that plowed winter roads did not come to north- 

 ern Vermont until the 1930's. The village store was the town 

 meeting place with its wood-fired, pot-belly stove, hand- 

 cranked, red-wheeled coffee grinder, open barrels of crackers, 



pickles and pork, bolts of cloth, harnesses, bulk peanut butter 

 and penny candy. Most of these country stores, some per- 

 sisted until the 1940's, also included the local post office. In 

 fact, they are not yet extinct. If you travel through some of 

 the high hill country off the main highways of New England, 

 you will still find the last vestiges of an early era of food dis- 

 tribution. Those of you who did not have the opportunity to 

 sit on the fringes of a Saturday night's gathering around the 

 red hot stove, missed a part of Americana that has almost gone 



There is almost an embarrassment of riches in seafood 

 departments. 



39 



